5 ms·

Is There a Shortage of STEM Workers?

50 points by Futurebot 11y ago

mrdrozdov 11y ago
The article argues that the reason companies complain that there are not enough STEM workers is so that they can pay existing workers less. It also says that an excess amount of STEM workers are created. I think this Stack Overflow post helps clear up the mystery here. It shows that the only STEM category with more job openings than students is Computer Science. It also mentions that the problem is still not so clear since almost half of programmers do not have a Computer Science degree. Stack Overflow post: http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/27590/are-there-more-open-jobs-than-available-developers http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/27590/are-there-...
- swuecho 11y ago
  Yes. STEM is not equal. I am a software engineer with the Master Degree in Biology. In biology, even if you have a PhD, the only way for you is a postdoc with a salary about 42,000$ per year. Many 'bad' majors, if you want to find a job, CS is the major to transfer or at least learn some programming. This is more true if you need sponsor to work.
  - jonesb6 11y ago
    I wonder how long it will be before this becomes common knowledge. I remember when I was going into college (2013) a lot of my peers chose Biology and similar STEM paths with the anticipation it would yield the same salary as C.S. or engineering degrees. Needless to say, it didn't
    - UmDieWelt 11y ago
      It's already common knowledge, which is why the amount of people majoring in CS is skyrocketing.
      - jonesb6 11y ago
        I would make the argument that it is common knowledge among most Silicon Valley tech workers, who I believe make up the primary user base on hacker news, but is it really common knowledge among everyone else? Anecdotally my experience at a large liberal arts university suggests most students tend to 'follow their dream' rather then making the best long-term career decisions in terms of their degree path.
    - swuecho 11y ago
      only when people wake from their day dream. a lot of students are told follow your dream and never face the reality. However, after college, they can barely find a job.
    - fweespeech 11y ago
      As far as I'm aware, at least in my social circles, it is. I used to work with a grad student who really, really wanted to do biology research and basically worked two jobs [student + lab tech] and 25hrs/week as a programmer to achieve it. He eventually ended up writing software for genetics research because they'd pay him double.
  - greggman 11y ago
    what about biotech?
    - swuecho 11y ago
      biotech is not good as well. too many graduates in biology majors and too few biotech jobs.
      - jonesb6 11y ago
        It's also my understanding that a large amount of biotech work is "grunt work" that requires a large amount of time and energy but not a large amount of skill.
- asuffield 11y ago
  The other reason is that workers in technical fields are not interchangeable. The opening article on this thread is operating under the assumption that all workers are effectively the same, therefore any industry which is simultaneously recruiting and cutting staff must be doing something "bad". If workers are not all the same, then the most likely explanation of the behaviour is instead that the industry (or company) is trying to recruit good workers and get rid of bad ones.
  - Khaine 11y ago
    I agree. There are shortages in some areas, but you can't take a programmer and expect them to be a system administrator or an infosec professional.
- sceptic05 11y ago
  These discussions are unbelievable. If there truly were a shortage of developers, then their wages would be rising, yet they aren't, as the report in the article notes. If I complained about a "shortage" of Ferraris while only offering to buy them new at the price of a Honda Civic, no one would take me seriously. But when Fortune 500 companies make the same complaints about labor, that they can't find great programmers while only offering $85-115k, the government responds with corporate welfare in the form of the H-1B visa. If there's really a programmer "shortage" at the wages offered, then employers should have to do like the rest of us and either pay more for what they want or do without and quit whining. Disgusting that even here on HN people make excuses for this.
  - RachelF 11y ago
    Exactly, there is no shortage of STEM workers, but there is a shortage of cheap STEM workers.
    - jaydz 11y ago
      I'm sure many companies want cheap labor, but other companies cannot find enough of the type of STEM worker they desire.
  - 001sky 11y ago
    If I complained about a "shortage" of Ferraris while only offering to buy them new at the price of a Honda Civic, no one would take me seriously. -- The issue in a nutshell
    - swuecho 11y ago
      if you put this way. there is no shortage of anything. Think about why most of factories moved to other countries? Do you want that happen to IT?
      - 001sky 11y ago
        offshoring has to do with excess supply, not shortages. eg, after telecom became cheap int't calls allowed telconferencing to bring english speaking people online who were overseas (eg, india). So, it's not that there is not shortage, there is simply new excess capacity (oversupply). The tech sector is the same way. There is no shortage... people actually just want to tap into pools of cheap labour to decrease market power of existing staff...and are marketing this as being needed by a shortage. Its complete BS as far as common english usage is concerned. There are plenty of engineers available, but there is only a shortage of engineers willing to work below market. By tapping into h1b and other new labour pools, again it shows that outsourcing is simply tapping into latent excess capacity. Totally different than a "shortage" being the original issue. But there will always be a shortage of people willing to work below market rates...that is a tautological logic working there, no/?
- draw_down 11y ago
  > But this is all one slice of the puzzle. That is, because almost half of developers don't have a degree in computer science, a survey by StackOverFlow says
- frostmatthew 11y ago
  > It shows that the only STEM category with more job openings than students is Computer Science. That seems to be in contradiction with an IEEE Spectrum article from a couple years ago that says "more than a third of recent computer science graduates aren’t working in their chosen major; of that group, almost a third say the reason is that there are no jobs available"[1] > It also mentions that the problem is still not so clear since almost half of programmers do not have a Computer Science degree. I don't doubt this at all, but I do question how much of this is skewed by those that entered the workforce before Computer Science became the most common degree for those becoming developers (i.e. degrees in Math or Electrical Engineering were far more common for most of the history of our profession). [1] http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/education/the-stem-crisis-is-a-myth http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/education/the-stem-crisis-i...
- fweespeech 11y ago
  > I think this Stack Overflow post helps clear up the mystery here. It shows that the only STEM category with more job openings than students is Computer Science. That isn't true. Wage growth isn't even 4% for computer programmers. The excess job postings are meant to generate H-1B applications and justify them, not to actually fill positions. It really is a price point problem where people want to pay sub-$60k wages for a programmer. I can throw a rock and hit at least 10 companies that are willing to pay me $45k simultaneously. The problem is, none of these people are worth me taking such a massive pay cut. I'll believe you when I see 5% YoY wage growth for 5 years for Comp Sci.
Jerry2 11y ago
Here are the summary passages: >The story is then not that there are too few STEM workers, but that employers will say they can’t find workers in order to increase the bargaining power that they have and hopefully lower their labor costs. Employers are increasingly pushing for policies shift training costs onto the public and expand H1B visas, which Hiltzik mentions. Some STEM employers are so desperate to reduce labor costs they even collude to keep down their employees’ wages. > The data indicate that Hiltzik is right to suspect that the STEM shortage is phony. The real story is that employers want to pay workers less.
- vellum 11y ago
  Also: > So when employers complain about not being able to find workers, what they really mean is that they can’t find workers who meet their specific requirements at the wage they are willing to offer. e.g. Onsite work, "culture fit", low wages, interview hazing....
  - wlesieutre 11y ago
    Don't forget about "familiar with every piece of technology we use because it's cheaper when employees paid for all their own training instead of leaning anything on the job"
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- gscott 11y ago
  NPR had a story about one company that was complaining about the lack of employees to hire to use CNC machines. Turned out the company pays $10 an hour and required high level math skills.
- TallGuyShort 11y ago
  I feel like I'm misunderstanding something. If companies create the impression there's a shortage of workers, doesn't that give them LESS bargaining power? If employees think they are rare and valuable, they will expect to be valued.
srinivasan 11y ago
Given the compensation mix in Silicon Valley (benefits, employee stock-based compensation), comparing hourly wages with other occupations is not apples-to-apples. Additionally, STEM vs Computer Science jobs has been discussed before.
- pmiller2 11y ago
  Stock options at most companies are the equivalent of lottery tickets, and should be valued at or near 0. Many companies offer a 401(k), but with no match. Don't even get me started on "unlimited vacation".... Besides health insurance (which really ought to be considered a basic requirement rather than a "fringe" benefit), catered meals, and a flexible WFH policy, what do Silicon Valley/SF companies even really offer in terms of benefits?
  - estsauver 11y ago
    That might be true for a random seed/series A company, if you have substantial equity in a later stage company it's usually worth real money. If you have any options you want to sell for close to zero in post series A companies that are still around, I'd love to chat...
    - pmiller2 11y ago
      If you have substantial equity in a later stage company, you got it early on. In other words, you won the lottery. Congratulations.
  - srinivasan 11y ago
    > if there were a real shortage, wages would be expected to grow. This is because employers would compete over a small number of workers, and they would need to raise wages to attract those workers. This is the crux of the article's argument, and I disagree. In a shortage, employers would need to raise compensation, not necessarily wages, to attract workers. (a) You're missing my point. The study cites hourly wage data for years 2009 through 2014. How large, or even how common, were sign-on bonuses (not perf bonuses) in 2009, and what are they at now? Sign-on bonuses are trivial to value. Any fair study would make an attempt to include that data - this one doesn't. (b) How common were were shuttles, day care, onsite yoga/fitness lessons, gender reassignment surgery, egg freezing, and whatever else in 2009? These things do have some value - to me at least, it's the amount of post-tax money I would have spent for these amenities elsewhere. People are unlikely to use all of the benefits of course, but the basket has grown. Health insurance as a benefit can't be considered to be a "basic requirement" and ignored, since plans vary a lot in coverage. (c) While the stock of "most companies" might be worth nothing, those companies tend to be small and short-lived. Regardless, the majority of engineers work at larger established companies, and most of those working at a startup that might fail in a month are doing it out of choice. TL;DR I am making an argument against the merits of the study. Rise in total compensation, and not rise in wages, is what matters.
puppetmaster3 11y ago
In a free market, the other way to state this: Is STEM workers underpaid?
- swuecho 11y ago
  based on major. In CS, most of them are not. in other major, such as biology, very obvious. For many people, the only reason they stay in biology to do postdoc is for green card. they will start over when they get green card.
  - puppetmaster3 11y ago
    Is there a shortage of CS engineers?
- sceptic05 11y ago
  YES. If corporations couldn't get the government to import cheap labor, and especially cheap labor subject to deportation when terminated by their employers (and thus extremely easy to abuse), they would have no choice but to increase our wages. Meanwhile, there are actual laws that prohibit you from importing prescription drugs from countries where they're sold for a fraction of the cost they are here, even when those drugs were originally manufactured in the US! What about the free market? Unbelievable.
  - bediger4000 11y ago
    What about the free market? In the case of pharmaceuticals, there probably isn't a free market at all. Regulatory capture has happened, and we're seeing the end result. In other things, the idea is "globalization for me, but not for thee". That is, ship US IT jobs to India or Viet Nam or where ever, but keep lawyers and doctors scarce in the US, and forbid bringing in cheap subsitutes. Or perhaps region codes: keep prices high in US and western Europe, but allow lower prices for Africa and South Asia, via DRM.
    - iofj 11y ago
elevenfist 11y ago
This bears an uncanny resemblance to the great depression, the dust bowl era, and "The Grapes of Wrath." Back then, companies distributed fliers advertising fruit picking temp. jobs. Americans would travel hundreds of miles just to fight with 3000 other unneeded people for such jobs. Today we have companies making websites telling people to "learn to code" and advertising that there is a shortage of tech workers. People invest their own time, and pay for bootcamps for a shot at a job. And the similarities don't end there. Agriculture owners would offer services like groceries and laundry to those who worked on their plantations...
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- jjoonathan 11y ago
  It doesn't just happen during market downturns. The flip side of "market forces eventually make bread and apartments and cars cheap" is (and has always been) "market forces eventually make labor cheap". Quality of Life has one factor in the numerator and one in the denominator, so there are only three ways to guarantee that the quotient rises: ignore the less-rosy factor, convince yourself that past performance is proof of future returns (rather than, say, superimposition over a long-term trend of benefits from technological progress), or to fight+luck your way to the winning side of the supply/demand game and ignore those who don't. The time will come when software engineering starts to saturate. Just like electrical engineering, chemical engineering, mechanical engineering... our time will come.
- sceptic05 11y ago
  In some ways it's actually worse in that programmers seem completely oblivious to what's happening to them. They allow the media to call them "coders" and will actually argue with you when you point out how the term is being used to marginalize them. They actively support the boot camp movement and code.org initiatives. They give talks at conferences[1] and write blog posts saying there's no such thing as programmer talent and that programming is easy and anyone can do it (could you imagine a doctor or lawyer publicly asserting likewise about their professions?) My advice to devs: make as much money as you possibly can now. Take VCs and tech companies for all they're worth and don't leave a penny on the table, because these people are fixing to crush you under their boot. 1 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9486391 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9486391
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
dnautics 11y ago
I think the problem is thus: There is not a shortage of STEM workers. However, I don't think this is a conspiracy to drive down wages, but a miscommunication. There is a shortage of good, competent STEM workers. Ironically, complaining that there aren't enough STEM workers runs the risk of pushing a training glut, and as less qualified but equally credentialed labor enters the market, the cost of finding these workers increases, then there are more complaints about "not enough STEM" and we enter a reinforcing cycle. The solution is to improve training quality, but that is difficult to measure or plan and thus not as appealing to political solutions, which is to just gun supply.
- djur 11y ago
  I don't think there's any evidence of a shortage of good STEM workers. There is a shortage of good STEM workers at the price businesses are willing to pay for them. There's less of an issue overall in the software world, though -- companies pay more for programmers, and there's less of a shortage.
- raincom 11y ago
  If they want good, competent STEM workers, they should pay more. More pay that is commensurable with housing prices, etc. That helps the average talent to spend time to become more competent. Otherwise, an average guy is not going to spend time to become that unicorn talent that these companies need.
squozzer 11y ago
We should not kid ourselves. The STEM shortage is a cynical fabrication. It is essentially war conducted with political, economic, and propaganda weapons. Against us. Keep that in mind when you decide to do something about it.
Roadgazer 11y ago
Complexity of tech is growing, and complexity level difference gap in stem skills is growing as well. Thus its always a race between the need and skills availability, rather than total number of workers. But yeah,The real story is that employers want to pay workers less.
tdaltonc 11y ago
I want more people working on building The Future. That means we need more people getting STEM training. This undergrad-level analysis of the labor market is a side show compared to that.

50 points by Futurebot 11y ago

The article argues that the reason companies complain that there are not enough STEM workers is so that they can pay existing workers less. It also says that an excess amount of STEM workers are created. I think this Stack Overflow post helps clear up the mystery here. It shows that the only STEM category with more job openings than students is Computer Science. It also mentions that the problem is still not so clear since almost half of programmers do not have a Computer Science degree. Stack Overflow post: http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/27590/are-there-more-open-jobs-than-available-developers http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/27590/are-there-...

swuecho 11y ago
Yes. STEM is not equal. I am a software engineer with the Master Degree in Biology. In biology, even if you have a PhD, the only way for you is a postdoc with a salary about 42,000$ per year. Many 'bad' majors, if you want to find a job, CS is the major to transfer or at least learn some programming. This is more true if you need sponsor to work.
- jonesb6 11y ago
  I wonder how long it will be before this becomes common knowledge. I remember when I was going into college (2013) a lot of my peers chose Biology and similar STEM paths with the anticipation it would yield the same salary as C.S. or engineering degrees. Needless to say, it didn't
  - UmDieWelt 11y ago
    It's already common knowledge, which is why the amount of people majoring in CS is skyrocketing.
    - jonesb6 11y ago
      I would make the argument that it is common knowledge among most Silicon Valley tech workers, who I believe make up the primary user base on hacker news, but is it really common knowledge among everyone else? Anecdotally my experience at a large liberal arts university suggests most students tend to 'follow their dream' rather then making the best long-term career decisions in terms of their degree path.
  - swuecho 11y ago
    only when people wake from their day dream. a lot of students are told follow your dream and never face the reality. However, after college, they can barely find a job.
  - fweespeech 11y ago
    As far as I'm aware, at least in my social circles, it is. I used to work with a grad student who really, really wanted to do biology research and basically worked two jobs [student + lab tech] and 25hrs/week as a programmer to achieve it. He eventually ended up writing software for genetics research because they'd pay him double.
- greggman 11y ago
  what about biotech?
  - swuecho 11y ago
    biotech is not good as well. too many graduates in biology majors and too few biotech jobs.
    - jonesb6 11y ago
      It's also my understanding that a large amount of biotech work is "grunt work" that requires a large amount of time and energy but not a large amount of skill.
asuffield 11y ago
The other reason is that workers in technical fields are not interchangeable. The opening article on this thread is operating under the assumption that all workers are effectively the same, therefore any industry which is simultaneously recruiting and cutting staff must be doing something "bad". If workers are not all the same, then the most likely explanation of the behaviour is instead that the industry (or company) is trying to recruit good workers and get rid of bad ones.
- Khaine 11y ago
  I agree. There are shortages in some areas, but you can't take a programmer and expect them to be a system administrator or an infosec professional.
sceptic05 11y ago
These discussions are unbelievable. If there truly were a shortage of developers, then their wages would be rising, yet they aren't, as the report in the article notes. If I complained about a "shortage" of Ferraris while only offering to buy them new at the price of a Honda Civic, no one would take me seriously. But when Fortune 500 companies make the same complaints about labor, that they can't find great programmers while only offering $85-115k, the government responds with corporate welfare in the form of the H-1B visa. If there's really a programmer "shortage" at the wages offered, then employers should have to do like the rest of us and either pay more for what they want or do without and quit whining. Disgusting that even here on HN people make excuses for this.
- RachelF 11y ago
  Exactly, there is no shortage of STEM workers, but there is a shortage of cheap STEM workers.
  - jaydz 11y ago
    I'm sure many companies want cheap labor, but other companies cannot find enough of the type of STEM worker they desire.
- 001sky 11y ago
  If I complained about a "shortage" of Ferraris while only offering to buy them new at the price of a Honda Civic, no one would take me seriously. -- The issue in a nutshell
  - swuecho 11y ago
    if you put this way. there is no shortage of anything. Think about why most of factories moved to other countries? Do you want that happen to IT?
    - 001sky 11y ago
      offshoring has to do with excess supply, not shortages. eg, after telecom became cheap int't calls allowed telconferencing to bring english speaking people online who were overseas (eg, india). So, it's not that there is not shortage, there is simply new excess capacity (oversupply). The tech sector is the same way. There is no shortage... people actually just want to tap into pools of cheap labour to decrease market power of existing staff...and are marketing this as being needed by a shortage. Its complete BS as far as common english usage is concerned. There are plenty of engineers available, but there is only a shortage of engineers willing to work below market. By tapping into h1b and other new labour pools, again it shows that outsourcing is simply tapping into latent excess capacity. Totally different than a "shortage" being the original issue. But there will always be a shortage of people willing to work below market rates...that is a tautological logic working there, no/?
draw_down 11y ago
> But this is all one slice of the puzzle. That is, because almost half of developers don't have a degree in computer science, a survey by StackOverFlow says
frostmatthew 11y ago
> It shows that the only STEM category with more job openings than students is Computer Science. That seems to be in contradiction with an IEEE Spectrum article from a couple years ago that says "more than a third of recent computer science graduates aren’t working in their chosen major; of that group, almost a third say the reason is that there are no jobs available"[1] > It also mentions that the problem is still not so clear since almost half of programmers do not have a Computer Science degree. I don't doubt this at all, but I do question how much of this is skewed by those that entered the workforce before Computer Science became the most common degree for those becoming developers (i.e. degrees in Math or Electrical Engineering were far more common for most of the history of our profession). [1] http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/education/the-stem-crisis-is-a-myth http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/education/the-stem-crisis-i...
fweespeech 11y ago
> I think this Stack Overflow post helps clear up the mystery here. It shows that the only STEM category with more job openings than students is Computer Science. That isn't true. Wage growth isn't even 4% for computer programmers. The excess job postings are meant to generate H-1B applications and justify them, not to actually fill positions. It really is a price point problem where people want to pay sub-$60k wages for a programmer. I can throw a rock and hit at least 10 companies that are willing to pay me $45k simultaneously. The problem is, none of these people are worth me taking such a massive pay cut. I'll believe you when I see 5% YoY wage growth for 5 years for Comp Sci.

Jerry2 11y ago

Here are the summary passages: >The story is then not that there are too few STEM workers, but that employers will say they can’t find workers in order to increase the bargaining power that they have and hopefully lower their labor costs. Employers are increasingly pushing for policies shift training costs onto the public and expand H1B visas, which Hiltzik mentions. Some STEM employers are so desperate to reduce labor costs they even collude to keep down their employees’ wages. > The data indicate that Hiltzik is right to suspect that the STEM shortage is phony. The real story is that employers want to pay workers less.

vellum 11y ago
Also: > So when employers complain about not being able to find workers, what they really mean is that they can’t find workers who meet their specific requirements at the wage they are willing to offer. e.g. Onsite work, "culture fit", low wages, interview hazing....
- wlesieutre 11y ago
  Don't forget about "familiar with every piece of technology we use because it's cheaper when employees paid for all their own training instead of leaning anything on the job"
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
gscott 11y ago
NPR had a story about one company that was complaining about the lack of employees to hire to use CNC machines. Turned out the company pays $10 an hour and required high level math skills.
TallGuyShort 11y ago
I feel like I'm misunderstanding something. If companies create the impression there's a shortage of workers, doesn't that give them LESS bargaining power? If employees think they are rare and valuable, they will expect to be valued.

srinivasan 11y ago

Given the compensation mix in Silicon Valley (benefits, employee stock-based compensation), comparing hourly wages with other occupations is not apples-to-apples. Additionally, STEM vs Computer Science jobs has been discussed before.

pmiller2 11y ago
Stock options at most companies are the equivalent of lottery tickets, and should be valued at or near 0. Many companies offer a 401(k), but with no match. Don't even get me started on "unlimited vacation".... Besides health insurance (which really ought to be considered a basic requirement rather than a "fringe" benefit), catered meals, and a flexible WFH policy, what do Silicon Valley/SF companies even really offer in terms of benefits?
- estsauver 11y ago
  That might be true for a random seed/series A company, if you have substantial equity in a later stage company it's usually worth real money. If you have any options you want to sell for close to zero in post series A companies that are still around, I'd love to chat...
  - pmiller2 11y ago
    If you have substantial equity in a later stage company, you got it early on. In other words, you won the lottery. Congratulations.
- srinivasan 11y ago
  > if there were a real shortage, wages would be expected to grow. This is because employers would compete over a small number of workers, and they would need to raise wages to attract those workers. This is the crux of the article's argument, and I disagree. In a shortage, employers would need to raise compensation, not necessarily wages, to attract workers. (a) You're missing my point. The study cites hourly wage data for years 2009 through 2014. How large, or even how common, were sign-on bonuses (not perf bonuses) in 2009, and what are they at now? Sign-on bonuses are trivial to value. Any fair study would make an attempt to include that data - this one doesn't. (b) How common were were shuttles, day care, onsite yoga/fitness lessons, gender reassignment surgery, egg freezing, and whatever else in 2009? These things do have some value - to me at least, it's the amount of post-tax money I would have spent for these amenities elsewhere. People are unlikely to use all of the benefits of course, but the basket has grown. Health insurance as a benefit can't be considered to be a "basic requirement" and ignored, since plans vary a lot in coverage. (c) While the stock of "most companies" might be worth nothing, those companies tend to be small and short-lived. Regardless, the majority of engineers work at larger established companies, and most of those working at a startup that might fail in a month are doing it out of choice. TL;DR I am making an argument against the merits of the study. Rise in total compensation, and not rise in wages, is what matters.

puppetmaster3 11y ago

In a free market, the other way to state this: Is STEM workers underpaid?

swuecho 11y ago
based on major. In CS, most of them are not. in other major, such as biology, very obvious. For many people, the only reason they stay in biology to do postdoc is for green card. they will start over when they get green card.
- puppetmaster3 11y ago
  Is there a shortage of CS engineers?
sceptic05 11y ago
YES. If corporations couldn't get the government to import cheap labor, and especially cheap labor subject to deportation when terminated by their employers (and thus extremely easy to abuse), they would have no choice but to increase our wages. Meanwhile, there are actual laws that prohibit you from importing prescription drugs from countries where they're sold for a fraction of the cost they are here, even when those drugs were originally manufactured in the US! What about the free market? Unbelievable.
- bediger4000 11y ago
  What about the free market? In the case of pharmaceuticals, there probably isn't a free market at all. Regulatory capture has happened, and we're seeing the end result. In other things, the idea is "globalization for me, but not for thee". That is, ship US IT jobs to India or Viet Nam or where ever, but keep lawyers and doctors scarce in the US, and forbid bringing in cheap subsitutes. Or perhaps region codes: keep prices high in US and western Europe, but allow lower prices for Africa and South Asia, via DRM.
  - iofj 11y ago

elevenfist 11y ago

This bears an uncanny resemblance to the great depression, the dust bowl era, and "The Grapes of Wrath." Back then, companies distributed fliers advertising fruit picking temp. jobs. Americans would travel hundreds of miles just to fight with 3000 other unneeded people for such jobs. Today we have companies making websites telling people to "learn to code" and advertising that there is a shortage of tech workers. People invest their own time, and pay for bootcamps for a shot at a job. And the similarities don't end there. Agriculture owners would offer services like groceries and laundry to those who worked on their plantations...

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
jjoonathan 11y ago
It doesn't just happen during market downturns. The flip side of "market forces eventually make bread and apartments and cars cheap" is (and has always been) "market forces eventually make labor cheap". Quality of Life has one factor in the numerator and one in the denominator, so there are only three ways to guarantee that the quotient rises: ignore the less-rosy factor, convince yourself that past performance is proof of future returns (rather than, say, superimposition over a long-term trend of benefits from technological progress), or to fight+luck your way to the winning side of the supply/demand game and ignore those who don't. The time will come when software engineering starts to saturate. Just like electrical engineering, chemical engineering, mechanical engineering... our time will come.
sceptic05 11y ago
In some ways it's actually worse in that programmers seem completely oblivious to what's happening to them. They allow the media to call them "coders" and will actually argue with you when you point out how the term is being used to marginalize them. They actively support the boot camp movement and code.org initiatives. They give talks at conferences[1] and write blog posts saying there's no such thing as programmer talent and that programming is easy and anyone can do it (could you imagine a doctor or lawyer publicly asserting likewise about their professions?) My advice to devs: make as much money as you possibly can now. Take VCs and tech companies for all they're worth and don't leave a penny on the table, because these people are fixing to crush you under their boot. 1 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9486391 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9486391

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

dnautics 11y ago

I think the problem is thus: There is not a shortage of STEM workers. However, I don't think this is a conspiracy to drive down wages, but a miscommunication. There is a shortage of good, competent STEM workers. Ironically, complaining that there aren't enough STEM workers runs the risk of pushing a training glut, and as less qualified but equally credentialed labor enters the market, the cost of finding these workers increases, then there are more complaints about "not enough STEM" and we enter a reinforcing cycle. The solution is to improve training quality, but that is difficult to measure or plan and thus not as appealing to political solutions, which is to just gun supply.

djur 11y ago
I don't think there's any evidence of a shortage of good STEM workers. There is a shortage of good STEM workers at the price businesses are willing to pay for them. There's less of an issue overall in the software world, though -- companies pay more for programmers, and there's less of a shortage.
raincom 11y ago
If they want good, competent STEM workers, they should pay more. More pay that is commensurable with housing prices, etc. That helps the average talent to spend time to become more competent. Otherwise, an average guy is not going to spend time to become that unicorn talent that these companies need.

squozzer 11y ago

We should not kid ourselves. The STEM shortage is a cynical fabrication. It is essentially war conducted with political, economic, and propaganda weapons. Against us. Keep that in mind when you decide to do something about it.

Roadgazer 11y ago

Complexity of tech is growing, and complexity level difference gap in stem skills is growing as well. Thus its always a race between the need and skills availability, rather than total number of workers. But yeah,The real story is that employers want to pay workers less.

tdaltonc 11y ago

I want more people working on building The Future. That means we need more people getting STEM training. This undergrad-level analysis of the labor market is a side show compared to that.